Tuesday, April 13, 2010

Back with updates

It's been a crazy few weeks. The flooding has ended for most, with damp, moldy remains for many. When the rain was finished, we proceeded to have 2 weeks of sunny, abnormally warm weather. It's been absolutely wonderful. With all the beautiful weather, it's difficult to hold back from planting out everything.

Last night was a return to reality with below freezing temps and more to come tonight. Thankfully I don't have anything out that should be affected. Above you can see my garlic. It's been coming up perfectly this year. So far it looks like the best year yet for garlic. It's something I use in most meals, so I'm happy to have as much as possible.

This is one of the cabbage seedlings. It is only one of 3 that survived. The bok choy and broccoli didn't make it either. This seems to be what happens to me every year. I'm not sure exactly what I do to kill them. A few weeks ago I direct seeded more brassicas and they seem to be coming up nicely. That may be what I do each year instead. I think my biggest issue is that I'm planting them too early and trying to hold them inside too long. I keep learning.

This is the lettuce that was seeded far too early. (seeing a pattern here?) I thought it was dead and just left it where it was. Lo and behold, it's coming back. Again, I'm learning.

Those hard to see wisps of plant material are my onions. They were planted out last week with the brassicas and are doing quite nicely. I'm very happy with how these behaved this year. It's actually my first truly successful year for starting onions from seed. Usually they are killed off by fungus. I planted far too many, but they'll all get used.

The main garden is all turned over now. I rented a rototiller for the very first time. I have to admit that I was absolutely terrified of the thing. It turns out that it was a reasonable fear. Hubby was off meeting a wedding client, but J was home as my backup. At first the plan was to have J help me get it out of the truck and I would do the tilling. Hah! Then the tiller started dragging me across the garden. Thankfully, J took over and in not too much time, had it all tilled up for me. He looked like I had almost killed him, so when his wife came home, I thought she might kill me. She just thought it was funny. Have I mentioned how great my neighbors are?

Lastly, the fruit trees are flowering and leafing out. This is the 3rd year for this peach tree. It's still not very big, but seems healthy enough. We'll have to wait and see if it produces any fruit or not. Since we're getting another freeze tonight, and it's still only mid April, we won't get anything. The warm weather has everything blooming and sprouting earlier than usual. Hopefully, there won't be too much damage to the trees and plants that came back to life early.

There is so much going on here now, I'll be busy until next November. I love it!

Your garden looks so good! This is my first year planting anything but tomatoes and peppers, and so far we're not off to a great start. I started lettuce seeds and even took them with me on vacation, but then when I transplanted them into the garden, they died within a few days. Oh, well, I'm learning!